Wallace Stevens and Literary Canons by John Timberman Newcomb This revealing study traces the mechanism of literary evaluation by which the work of Wallace Stevens became a central and revered part of the treasury of modern American poetry. It is a study of literary canonization, and though focused only upon Stevens, it sheds a strong ray of light upon the processes of canon formation operating in twentieth-century America. Canonization is a phenomenon of literary culture. This analysis of how a writer advanced to the modern poetic canon is not only a study in literary criticism but also an...

This book traces the emergence of modern American poetry at the turn of the nineteenth century. With a particular focus on four "little magazines"--Poetry, The Masses, Others, and The Seven Arts--John Timberman Newcomb shows how each advanced ambitious agendas combining urban subjects, stylistic experimentation, and progressive social ideals. While subsequent literary history has favored the poets whose work made them distinct--individuals singled out usually on the basis of a novel technique--Newcomb provides a denser, richer view of the history that hundreds of poets made.